


To be determined

by TheGriefPolice



Series: Tony Needs a Little Help Sometimes [3]
Category: Iron Man - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bruce Banner Is a Good Bro, Disability, Dyslexic, Dyslexic!Tony, Howard Stark’s A+ Parenting, Protective Bruce Banner, Science Bros, Tony Needs a Hug, family if choice, nerodivergent character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-02
Updated: 2018-06-02
Packaged: 2019-05-17 04:43:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14825459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGriefPolice/pseuds/TheGriefPolice
Summary: It’s not really a secret. Tony just doesn’t share it if he doesn’t have to. But a late night and a time crunch bring Bruce to the rescue and Tony shares more than he intended. But, maybe it was for the better.Title may change latter. It’s too early for me to think of one right now. XD





	To be determined

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn’t sleep, so I wrote this based off my own experiences.
> 
> I dedicate this story to all of my amazing friends who have helped me get to where I am. (Y’all know who you are.) I love you guys forever, and you are my Bruce Banner.

Tony stared at the screen, blinking a few times to try and still the moving and shifting lines. 

So, maybe locking himself in the lab was not his best idea after a call-out for the Avengers. It wasn’t his fault if some stupid ass guy calling himself “Stilt-man” decided he had enough of other villains making fun of him and decided to plant several fertilizer barrels with C-4 strapped to the top around the city. Tony knew going out that it would be easy enough to find the guy and nab the remote detonator before he could blow the Central Park Zoo to Tim-buck-tu. He just hadn’t remembered that he’d have to come back and finish the data input for a larger storage on the tiny device for his new phone design. By hand. Because JARVIS was an ass and refused to help until Tony got some sleep.

Tony didn’t have time to sleep. The damn coding had to be set in stone by morning for the Board to not come after blood. He’d already pushed the date off twice, and Pepper would not let him get away again. 

But, there was also the catch that no amount of blinking was going to help the lines of text that were starting to look like the sea during a storm, the letters moving the tide and swishing back and forth.

“Sir, I recommended getting some rest before trying to continue.” JARVIS repeated for what much have been the eighteenth-thousandth time.

Tony pushed the projected keyboard away, letting his head fall onto the table. “Shut it, J. This needs to get done.”

“It will only get worse the more exhausted you are, Sir.”

Tony looked up at the ceiling, having picked up the habit from the other inhabitants of the Tower, despite his constant reminded that JARVIS could hear everyone no matter where they looked. “Did I ask your opinion?”

“No. But seeing as you refuse to listen anyway, I saw no fault with giving it.”

Damn AI was gonna get a one-way ticket to a community college with a mouth like that. Tony let his head fall back onto the table, crossing his arms across his stomach as he leaned forward on the desk. The bench was starting to hurt his butt, and his head cried for the release of looking at small green text on a black screen.

At least it was green, Tony thought idly. Blue or red would have had him down a lot earlier. For some reason, the colors just made a whole new level of unnecessary strain on his brain. The holo-screens were mostly blue simply because the color worked best for projections. But the text within was almost always a shade of green.

A hand on his shoulder brought Tony out of his musing, sending him bolt upright in his chair as he looked frantically around the room.

“Woah, hey, just me,” Bruce said, a Manila folder tucked under his arm as he held out a cup of coffee. “Take a breath.”

Tony let out a chest full of air, reaching up to wipe at the chilled area on his chin that turned out to be drool. He tried to play it off as well as he could, wiping the back of his hand off on his jeans before grabbing at the sleeve of his shirt to clean off the rest.

Bruce sat down the black mug of coffee, laying the folder on the cart of tools Tony had yet to push out of his way. It was only then that Tony realized he must have had his head down for a bit longer than he thought.

“What’re you doing here?” Tony mumbled, reaching for the nectar of the gods.

“Good morning to you as well,” Bruce chuckled, grabbing a stool and pulling over the holo-screen that Tony had thrown to the side before his unplanned nap. 

“JARVIS asked me to come down and help when I woke up. Said you were having trouble with data input.” Bruce tapped two fingers on the table twice, pulling up a keyboard that he started to type away on. “I’m glad he did, too. Looks like you fell asleep on the keyboard with all this gibberish.”

Tony looked over Bruce’s shoulder. Now that he was slightly more awake, even his eyes could see the mess he had made of the code. He let out a groan, setting the mug down and wishing he had just stayed asleep.

“Do you have your notes anywhere?” Bruce asked, reaching for the mug and stealing a sip. 

At this point in their friendship, To y didn’t even think twice about grabbing the mug right after to take his own sip. 

“Yeah, they should be pulled up around here somewhere.” Tony gestured to the few screens still up and floating above the table with his left had as the right kept a firm hold on the mug.

Bruce dug trough the windows before finding the familiar chicken scratch that was Tony’s handwriting.

“You have the worst handwriting on the face of the planet,” Bruce chuckled, putting the note and the input screen next to each other.

“Why are you down here again? Cause I’m pretty sure it wasn’t to critique my notes.” Tony said, a bit more defensively than he meant.

“I’m here because you have a deadline in two hours and there’s no way you’ll be able to enter all of this yourself.” Bruce said matter-of-factly, making Tony feel like a bit of an ass.

Tony cleared his throat, sitting up a bit more in his seat. He tapped twice on the table to pull up his own key board, pushing a search button to open a new tab to start input. 

“Why are there so many E’s in this thing, man?” Bruce said, shaking his head.

Tony knew Bruce didn’t mean anything by it, but he couldn’t help the involuntary slumping of his shoulders. It was hard to not let that subject rub him a bit the wrong way after years of being teased not-so-nicely over it.

“Hey, you okay?” Bruce asked, picking up on Tony’s annoyance. 

That man was way too perceptive for his own good, Tony thought.

“Yeah, peachy.” Tony huffed.

Bruce turned a bit more toward Tony. “Is it about me being here, because I will leave if you really want me to.”

“No, it’s—“ Tony let out a puff of air, looking over to his friend. “Let’s just not talk about my handwriting any more, okay?”

“Okay,” Bruce said, his eyebrow twisting with concern. 

Tony tried to ignore it as best he could, holding his head up a bit and making it a point to not look Bruce’s way.

“Is there something you want to talk about?” Bruce asked softly.

“No, why?” Tony replied. He already knew he answered the question too quickly for it to truly avoid a conversation, and was not surprised when Bruce pushed on.

“Because you’re doing that thing that you do when something’s bothering you. The one where you square your shoulder and won’t look at me.”

Tony turned to look at Bruce. “I don’t do that!”

Bruce gave a soft side smile. “Please tell me?”

Tony huffed, all air of defiance out of him. Bruce was one of his closest friends, after all. He was the only one of the team that had a programmed override code on almost all lock downs. (The word “programmed” because Natasha had found some stupid back door she refused to tell Tony about.)

“It’s not that big a deal, okay.” Tony twiddled with the hem of his shirt, picking at a nonexistent lose thread. 

“If it’s a big deal to you, than it’s a big deal to me.” Bruce responded without a second thought, his voice holding that touch of sincerity Tony had almost thought to human race no longer capable of after Afghanistan.

“Look, it’s just...” Tony looked up at the monitor of his thin, sloppy handwriting of varied sizes all around the screen.

“I just can’t read the shit sometimes, okay? That’s why JARVIS called you. My brain just wouldn’t,” Tony help his hand up at the screen shaking it a bit as he tried to think of the words, “make sense of this crap. It happens sometimes. It’s not that big of a deal.”

Bruce looked at his with narrowed eyes, the look of investigation he had when looking at a complicated problem in his lab. Then, his eyebrows softened with his realization.

“Tony, are you dyslexic?” 

Tony swallowed, looking anywhere that wasn’t Bruce as he shrugged, not wanting to give the real answer, but also not wanting to lie to his friend.

“Hey, it’s okay if you are,” Bruce put a gentle hand on Tony’s shoulder, seeming to wait until Tony looked up before continuing. “No one will think any less of you.”

Tony looked at his friend with nothing but confusion. Dyslexia was the disability of the stupid and illiterate. At least, that’s what his primary school teachers had told him.

“Really, it’s not that big of a deal. Lots of people have it!” Bruce smiled a little stronger, and Tony had a hard time fighting against the need to recuperate the emotion.

“It just means you gotta put a little extra work forwards sometimes. But, if you ask me, I don’t think it’s set you back at all.” 

Now Tony was confused again. His inability and general dislike of any kid of words had set him back quite a bit in primary school. His teachers often said he had a brilliant mind, but he was just “too lazy” to put forth the effort and read. No one had ever asked Tony why he refused to put himself through the inevitable headaches to do something he had no interest in.

“You know that, right?” Bruce’s voice was laced with concern, and it made Tony’s chest feel just a little bit warmer.

He gave his head a single nod, looking up at his friend through lashed. “Yeah, I mean, I built all of this without really reading until I was ten.”

Bruce smiled. “See, all the crap is made to be is a label. It’s used in all the wrong ways.”

“How do you mean?” Tony asked, truly interested to hear Bruce’s take.

“I’ve been all around the word and helped tons of people, and all of them have one thing in common—they feel as if a diagnosis becomes a definition.” Brice shook his head. “That’s not at all what it’s for. When you are diagnosed with asthma, you get an inhaler. Being dyslexic is no different. All you need is a bit of extra help and you’re all good.”

Tony couldn’t help the small conflict in years of teachers and adult telling him that he was his diagnosis, and Bruce saying the diagnosis was simply a part of him. 

When he voiced this out loud, all Bruce said was, “How about you believe the one you want to.”

With another soft smile Tony’s way, Bruce stretched out his arm and cracked his knuckles. “How about we get to work?”

Tony nodded, watching his friend go right back to what he’s been doing ten minutes ago as if nothing had happened. Tony took a moment to look the curly-hairs man over with a soft smile gracing his lips. He reached his arms out and hugged Bruce tightly, letting go after a moment and turning around as if nothing had happened.

And if Tony saw the way Bruce looked over at him admiringly, neither of them said anything.


End file.
